A/N: I'm sorry about the previous two chapters ... how incredibly boring were they? Even I struggled on the re-read... Here's hoping that this offering - and the chapters that follow - are much more entertaining.

Bear with me ... I'm sorely out of practice here ...

~~oooOOOooo~~

The TARDIS engines screeched, sparked and spluttered as the old Time Ship struggled inside the landing sequence entered by the Doctor. For several long minutes she struggled to find a breech in the invisible force field that surrounded the tall office tower, but found nothing. There was no way to circumvent the strange security protocols that had been installed. There was no way for her to materialize inside, no matter how much her thief yelled and commanded she do it.

She shuddered and bucked as she tried again to answer the Doctor's demand for her to land. The screeching of her Rotor and the wild bucking of her console room simply had to let him know that she was trying the best that she could to obey him.

"C'mon, my beautiful ship," the Doctor growled through gritted teeth as she tossed him and his companion to the floor for the fifth time. "Keep trying. I know you can find a way in."

Nancy grasped hard at the edge of the console as she desperately tried to maintain her stand amidst the violent thrashing inside the console room. "What's happening, Doctor? Why is she throwing us around like this?"

He clawed around the console in an attempt to keep standing and flicked several small switches underneath the monitor. "She's struggling to materialize in the building. It looks like they have shielding in place that's preventing her landing."

He grunted as another wild bucking of his ship tossed him back against the jump seat. "Oh, but she's trying. My beautiful ship is trying every trick in the book to get us in there."

"Can't we just land outside?"

Another thrash, and the Doctor was thrown forward into the console. He let out a grunt as he stumbled with the flap of his blazer being caught on a lever. He quickly freed himself. "No time," he growled. "If they see us materialize outside, we could very well put Jack and Rose in more danger."

"But I thought you said they wouldn't see us? Perception filter, right?"

The Doctor fell on his ass, but rebounded quickly with a roll through his knees to crawl back to the console. He didn't answer his companion, choosing rather to speak to his ship. "It's okay, old girl. Keep trying. I believe in you. If you have to keep throwing me on my arse, then you do that."

"Doctor!"

"Yes," he grunted finally through gritted teeth. "Perception filter. But, that only works if someone isn't actively looking for us. Torchwood, unfortunately, are always on high alert for me and any other alien that might be swanning about." He stooped to pull a lever slightly under the console. "The TARDIS has a very specific energy signature. They would have picked us up on their radar the moment we hit this time zone."

"But we're not on Earth, right?"

He shook his head. "Still in the Vortex. TARDIS is trying to find her pathway for materialization. She won't leave the Vortex until she knows she can materialize." He was thrown again and let out a huff. "Okay, girl. Stop. Stop. It's okay. You're only going to hurt yourself if you keep trying."

TARDIS gave it one last valiant effort. She then sparked, shuddered, screeched, and let out a defeated whine. Her console levelled out and she went quiet except for an exhausted hum.

The Doctor stroked affectionately at the console. "Don't be upset with yourself, old girl. You did the best you could. We'll just have to think of something else." He spun in place to rest his backside up against the console, crossed his legs at the ankle and dropped his chin into his hand. "I don't like this."

Nancy held at her chest as she steadied her breath. "What's going on, Doctor? We've never had problems like this before. And…" she inhaled a worried breath. "I've never seen you like this before."

"You haven't been around when I believe Rose is in danger before," he admitted on a flat tone. He dropped his head and thrust his hands into his pockets.

"But we don't know that, Doctor," she offered. "For all we know, she's fine and dandy."

He kept his head low and gave it a slow shake. "She's not," he said softly with a touch of his fingers to his temple. "I can feel it. Here. There's something wrong." He sighed and raised his head to look across the room at nothing in particular. "Something's wrong, and I can't get to her to help her out."

Nancy moved to lean against the console's edge beside him. "How do you mean that you can feel it?"

"Time Lords," he breathed softly. "We're a telepathic species. We can feel each other's presence…"

"Wait," she interrupted as she brought her hands to her temples as though to shield herself from him. "You can, like, read minds?"

He couldn't even snort in amusement, such was his concern. Instead he merely shook his head. "No. I can't read your mind unless you've given me your consent and I'm specifically reaching out and touching you."

"Then how…?"

"Rose and me," he said with a croak. "We're connected. Have been for a while, I suppose, in a…" He dropped his head and gave a light chuckle. "Well. At risk of sounding rather melodramatic, I've been imprinted on her since I died for her and took on this form…"

"You did what now?"

He continued as though she hadn't spoken. "And whatever connection we had back then has only been amplified since she regenerated. Amplified Intensified…" He pressed the butts of his palms into his eyes and let out a gruff breath. "And now. Rassilon. With courtship toward a bond well and truly initiated, I can feel every emotion she feels." He growled and stomped a foot on the grating beneath his feet. "Feel everything. It's so damn overwhelming."

"Sounds bad," she cooed softly with a stroke against his arm.

He shook his head quickly. "No. It's just something I have to get used to," he muttered. "It's been so quiet in there for so long. "He tapped at his temple. "I'd forgotten what it felt like to have someone in my head again."

"So. It's good, then?"

A smile crossed his face at that moment. "Yeah." He then shook himself, cleared his throat and turned back to the console of his ship. "And right now, Rose's feeling out of sorts. Something is happening and she's worried, even frightened." He rolled his shoulders and levelled down slightly in his stance. "But determined. So very determined is my Rose Tyler."

"You really love her, don't you, Doctor?"

"That word is inadequate," he groused as he flicked the TARDIS monitor toward him and tried to analyze the new information his ship was offering him. "Sorely inadequate."

"Wow."

He let out a breath as long as he was old and drummed his fingers on the table. He looked up and focused on the pulsing time rotor column. He let out a pleading breath of hope. "If I can feel you, Rose, then you can feel me. You have to know I'm worried about you, love. Find a way to reach me." He let out a breath. "Find a way to tell me what's happening."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Jack and Rose wasted very little time in launching in a run back in the direction in which they came. Neither of them were in any way adequately armed to deal with the problem they'd been led toward.

And what a problem they had on their hands.

"How in the bloody Hell are they here," Rose growled inside a pant as the pair of them found themselves in a dead-ended crook.

Jack took up arms behind her as she looked frantically on a touch screen panel for a way out. "Your guess is as good as mine." He heard her growl and looked briefly over his shoulder at her. "You okay?"

"Not really," she groused as her fingers punched harder at the screen than was really necessary. "But I rarely am in these situations, so status quo, really."

"We have to get hold of the Doc. He's going to want to know about this."

Rose slid her eyes to Jack. Her brows here high in question. "Do you really think so, Jack? With them here? I think it's probably best we don't let him in on this little secret…" She looked back at the screen and traced her fingertip along a schematic of the wing they were in. "Oh fuck me."

"Damn good offer, beautiful. But I'm afraid that I have to decline. If I tried to do that," he muttered. "I'm sure that your Time Lord would succeed where all others have failed, and I'd be dead in one hit." He jogged quietly the three strides to take him to the top of the corridor to peer cautiously down the end. "And yeah. He's got to be told about this, because if there's more of them…"

"Yeah. I hear ya," she agreed as she removed her cellphone from her pocket and thumbed through the contacts in search of "Tardis". Her eyes remained on the schematics as she pressed the call button and held the phone to her ear. "We're not in the tower," she advised her partner shortly. "Just so you know."

"Then where are we?"

"Looks like they put in an extension that they didn't bother telling the staff about." She frowned at an annoying beep in her ear that said her call failed, and tried again. "Panel says we're actually about two blocks from the tower in that shitty little office building on the corner of Front Street."

"Terrific," he muttered with another look down the corridor. He looked back to her. "Not having any luck getting hold of him?"

She shook her head. "Dead-zoned, I guess."

"Let's hope that doesn't mean TARDIS proofed as well."

Rose winced. "I didn't think of that."

Jack held out a hand to her. "C'mon, let's you and me find a way out of here. Have you got the map burned into your mind, yet?"

She nodded and latched her hand onto his as she tried the call again. "Yeah. If we go left at the junction up here, and take another left at the end of the corridor, we should find ourselves in a better to hide in section of the wing."

He checked to find the corridor empty and tugged her to follow him. "No exit?"

"We don't exit until we take these things down, Jack."

She grunted at her phone refusing to connect and hit it against her thigh as though it might knock some connectivity into it. "We can't just swan out of here and leave them to find a way to get out into the general population."

"No," he agreed distractedly as he continued to look around. "But it might allow us to reach the Doc and let him come up with something."

"Oh," she panted with a chuckle. "You don't want to try and do this on our own, you know being the big bad Torchwood agents that we are."

"Again I bring up the Doctor who will drop me where I stand if I even entertain the notion of allowing you to deal with the ultimate scourge of the universe without first obtaining express written consent from the Last of the Time Lords for me to do so - Which we both know he won't give."

"That's quite a mouthful," she cooed inside a laugh. "And I'm still trying to reach him, okay? In the meantime, how about you try and think of a way for us not to get exterminated before the TARDIS shows up."

Jack led them both around the final corner and clutched her hand tightly as he kicked at a door handle to burst into a room. "Prowl around a bit in here, Rosie. See if you can find a hot spot."

She stood for a moment with her hands dropped at her sides and her eyes on the splintered door handle. "Did you ever stop to consider that kicking a door like this may give our hiding place away, Jack?"

"What?"

"Just sayin," she shrugged as she held out her phone and began to walk around the room in search of connectivity for her phone. "It's a bit of a dead giveaway which room we're in when it has a bootmark on the door and a shattered tumbler unit."

Jack merely offered her a dark glare as he began a search of the room for anything he could use as a weapon. "Any ideas, Rose? Any ideas on how we're going to obliterate that group when we're armed with only a pair of hand guns and…" He stopped and held up a stapler, which he'd opened up in such a manner that he could fire out staples. "And this."

Rose raised a brow and brought the phone to her ear again. "I suppose they could get caught in their wheels or whatever they scoot along the floor with." She frowned. "Just what do they scoot…" she gasped a quick squeak and held up her hand as the call connected and she could hear the ringing of the phone. "I think we got him."

"Sensational," Jack boomed as he leaned around the door to look down the corridor. "Tell him to get that tight-suited ass of his in here pronto."

Rose let out a growled huff when the call went through to voicemail. "Oh you have got to be kidding me," she moaned. "Voicemail, Doctor," she snapped after the beep. "Voicemail? What is the point of having a phone, love, if you aren't going to answer it?" Another grunt. "By the time you receive this message," she continued along a flat voice. "Captain Jack Harkness and Rose Tyler might have found themselves on the rather unpleasant end of a Dalek death ray. Fortunately for you, I have eleven chances of surviving this, and Jack. Well. Jack. He's about to test his limits of rebirth." She inhaled and softened her voice. "Doctor. We're in trouble and we need you. Jack and I are in Torchwood – but in a separate building from the main tower – and we're kind of trapped with a quartet of our favourite pepper pots of hate. I need you. Please."

"Don't forget to add that you love him," Jack offered with a lean against the doorframe. "If they're going to be your last words, then make them ones he wants to hear."

She spoke a series of words that Jack couldn't translate. Identification of them was easy enough to place – obviously Gallifreyan. He let her finish and slouched against the doorframe.

"So. Rose. Use that brilliant Time Lord mind of yours. Tell me what you think we have on our hands, and how we can get ourselves out of this if we can't get the Doc here on time."

Rose moved toward the door and settled herself on the frame opposite to Jack. "Cult of Skaro," she began on a sigh. "If I was to guess, of course."

"And who are they?"

"Kind of an elite group of Daleks," she offered. "Created by the Emperor to strategize newer and more wonderful ways of exterminating their enemies. They've been programmed to think like their enemies. To actually think." She looked to Jack with wide eyes. "Imagine that, Jack. Daleks with actual thought."

"And you think that's who we're up against here?"

She nodded. "Makes sense. Four of them, which is the magic number that Arcadia has … had … on file for the sect."

"And the Emperor…"

"That creepy thing from the Gamestation, 'member him?"

Jack pursed his lips and raised his head in remembrance. "Ahh. Yes. But he's gone now, right?"

Rose nodded. "Very much so." She hooked her hair behind her ear. "I made sure of it."

"Do you remember how you got rid of them," he ventured. "I mean the Daleks the last time you came up against them." He dipped his head to look into her face as she lowered her head. "Rose? Do you?"

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. "No," she practically snapped at him. "Not an option."

"Anything's an option," he challenged. "You and the Doc. You both took down an entire Dalek fleet and their emperor with no weapons. And don't tell me the Delta wave worked, because I know it wasn't used."

"No."

"How did you do it," he asked again. "And can it be done again?"

"No, it can't," she offered quietly. "It was power that I simply don't have anymore. Pure Chronon energy with a splash of Artron and Huon power to punch it up a notch."

"Vortex power," he queried with distinct shock. "No. Rose. You can't tell me that it was Vortex power." He shook his head. "That's impossible. It's impossible to channel and direct that kind of raw energy. My God, to even try to wield it. It'd be worse than the delta wave was going to be. Impossible."

"And so am I," she whispered with a spread of her arms in presentation of her new form. "Yet here I am."

"It was you," he breathed in a shuddering voice. "You were the weapon."

"The abomination," she corrected. "I am the abomination; a creature created by vortex power…"

"Can you call on it again?"

She shook her head. "No. The Doctor took that power from me. I couldn't call on it, hell, I wouldn't call on it. It burned, Jack. It was so painful."

He pulled her into his arms. "Then don't even try," he said softly. "I'm sorry that I even suggested it."

She let him talk soothingly against her hair, and stroke gently at her back, but suddenly stiffened in his hold as a thought came to her. "Artron," she whispered to herself. "Regeneration energy…"

Jack's gripped locked around her as he stiffened around her. "Rose. Don't even think about it."

She pulled out of his embrace and began to pace. "A combination of Huon and Artron energy, a channeled blast. It could work, Jack."

"And so could a hyperblaster," he growled. "Which is something I think I'm going to figure out how to procure real quick."

"I could do it, Jack. We could make it work and we could take them down."

"No," he snarled in a harsh snap. "That's nowhere near a viable option. We aren't going to even consider anything so ludicrous."

"What else do we have?" she growled. "Have you seen what they've got with them, Jack? Have you taken a look at what they're protecting?"

Jack screwed up his face and shook his head. "Still not worth it, Rose."

"It's a Genesis Ark," she growled. "Have you heard of one of those in your travels through time and Space, Jack? Do you have any idea at all what such a thing can contain?"

"You're not going to convince me to let you pull the single most stupid battle move in the entire history of the universe," he growled. "You tell him," he snapped with a point toward the door in emphasis to the Doctor who should have been waiting just beyond it. "You tell the Doctor about that little plan in your head and you know what he'd do? Do you?"

She glared at him as she folded a petulant cross of her arms against her chest.

"Tell me, Rose. Tell me what reaction you'd get from him?"

"Well, he's not here, is he," she muttered with a petulant lift in her chin and roll in her jaw. "He's unreachable, and we have no other option." She stomped her foot and pointed toward the corridor. "You and me, Jack. They can use you and me to open that bloody Ark and unleash who bloody well knows what upon London." She clutched at her hair. "That's Time Lord technology they have there," she warned. "And what do we know about Time Lord Technology?"

"That's it's pretty impressive and likely very dangerous," he snapped.

"Yes," she agreed. "And bigger on the inside. Imagine what the Lords have managed to put inside of that thing; and who are the ones currently guarding it; and you tell me. What can we expect to come out of it if it was opened?"

Jack leaned down to leer into her face. "And it's pretty obvious at this point that they don't know how to get it open. So for now, and until we can reach the Doctor, we can assume it's safe to ignore it."

She lifted her eyes to his and dropped her head backward to arrogantly stare at him. "We can't ignore anything," she said indignantly. "And I'm not going to. I'm going to make sure that we destroy the cult before that thing can be opened."

"You're not doing it. I won't let you." He snatched his phone from his pocket and initiated a call of his own. He pointed at her as he held the phone to his ear. "Let's see just how the Doctor's going to feel about this, shall we?"

She rolled her eyes. "He'd have to actually answer the phone first." Her eyes shot to the doorway, and to the sound of approaching Daleks at the end of a very long, and twisted corridor. "You have about three minutes and twenty seven seconds to come up with something better."

"Rose. No. Don't you even think about it," he snarled. The snarl became a relieved laugh when he heard a familiar mechanical hum and an even more familiar voice pick up the call. "Doc. Oh thank all things holy it's you."

"Jack, what's happening?"

"You gotto get down here, Doc. There's shit and there's fans and I'm not ready to get splattered."